


Old Folklore

by urami



Series: Hometown Urban Legends [1]
Category: Deltarune, Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Chara is pretty unhinged, Female Chara (Undertale), Gen, Ghosts, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Graphic Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Male Kris (Deltarune), Murder Mystery Elements, Other, or Maybe something else, ritual violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2020-02-29 20:28:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18785617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/urami/pseuds/urami
Summary: Out of desperation to save her dying father, Noelle Holiday makes a deal with the (quite possibly literal) devil and potentially ushers in the apocalypse. With only the local juvenile delinquents for backup, can she hold off the end of everything?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Please be aware that this story contains elements that might be upsetting for some readers. Make sure to read the warning tags before you continue.

Prologue 

 

For many years, in the city of Hometown, there was an old folk legend that told of a powerful, angry spirit that was said to, among other things, have the power to bring about the end of the world.But this spirt was said to be limited in the physical world, not usually possessing either the strength of soul nor the determination to be much more than a nuisance. But the destructive fury and crafty intelligence it possessed was always there, waiting for a vessel angry enough, or desperate enough to give it a foothold in the living world.

And then once it was strong enough, it would proceed to slaughter not only all the monsters, but every single human being. Even then its rage would not be sated. Once it had annihilated all sapient life, it would move on to the lower animals, plants, and eventually, even rocks and minerals. The final thing it would do was vaporize the very planet itself. 

Once it had finally exhausted itself by destroying everything under the sun, only then would it allow itself to rest in the spirt world. As to who, or what, the spirit had been in its life, legends varied. One story said that it had been a human witch who had died when a spell intended to kill the monsters during the war had backfired. Another held that it had been a young boss monster who had died in an accident, who bore such a grudge that his soul had stuck around despite all odds. Yet another still told of horrific crime against God and nature, an abomination born of a monster father and a human mother, (or was it the other way around ,with a monster mother and a human father?) with a bizarre hybrid soul that couldn’t die normally. But most monsters, at least, believed it was the restless spirit of a human child who had committed suicide. The child had died with so much resentment and hatred that it would never be able to rest properly. 

But it was just folklore. While ghost monsters existed, everyone knew that humans couldn’t become ghosts. When they died, their souls passed on to the spirit world, or the afterlife, or heaven, or whatever it was that humans believed in. It was just a scary story told to frighten children into behaving- “eat your vegetables and do your homework, or the demon that comes when you call its name will come and get you!” Or it was told by teenagers trying to freak each other out in tests of courage in the old caves south of Hometown- “dude, watch out! This cave is where the demon killed itself! If you see red eyes it’s gonna eat you!” 

But it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. 

Right? 


	2. A Bleak Outlook

Noelle Holiday tried not to cry as she looked at her father dozing softly in the hospital bed, machines beeping all around him. It was the strangest thing. A few days ago, he’d been… well, not fine, but better. He could sit up and tell jokes and carry on a conversation without too much difficulty. Last Tuesday he’d even been hungry enough to want to eat her Christmas cookies, but the rabbit-like nurse had put the kibosh on that pretty quickly, giving a whole spiel about dust glucose levels and medication interference- “NO SOLID MONSTER **OR** HUMAN FOOD OF ANY KIND!” the nurse had shouted furiously. 

Seeing the difficulty Noelle had had understanding that, the woman had sighed, putting a comforting paw on the girl’s shoulder. “Noelle, this isn’t like normal illnesses for our kind. I’ve never seen anything like it. Neither has the doctor. The humans have- the human doctor from Our Lady of the Mountain Charitable Hospital said it was similar to a disease they have that attacks their immune systems, that makes them more likely to die from minor illnesses. But we are doing everything we can to save him. The humans from the human hospital sent us some specialized equipment, and we hope it will be enough.Noelle’s heart, however, at that explanation, sank even more. Her father was a monster, and monster medicine wasn’t working. It also seemed as though the humans didn’t have much of a better idea about what was happening, even if they had a similar disease. And nothing the hospital  did seemed to be working. 

What everyone did know, however, was that Rudy Holiday was getting worse. She didn’t think the doctor had known she was still within earshot when he’d said it, but Noelle had overheard him telling Asgore Dreemurr to prepare for the worst. “The truth is that despite whatever else it’s presenting as, it’s still soul instability,” he’d called it. “There’s not much we can do other than try to keep him comfortable and wait for the inevitable.” 

Noelle waited another half an hour, listening to her father’s soft snoring, before the night shift nurse came along to kick her out. “Go on home, girl,” the goose-like woman had suggested, slightly sharply. “It’s Wednesday. You still have school tomorrow and Toriel will be angry if you show up late because you were up all night.”The reindeer girl trudged home, her thoughts still consumed with her father’s condition. Monster magic couldn’t help him. Human medicine couldn’t help him. Maybe if humans still had magic, human magic would be able to do something, but from what she remembered from history class, their magic had always been oriented towards destruction and slaughter rather than healing. Besides, she really only knew one human, anyway, the Dreemurr family’s weird adopted son. Truthfully, Kris creeped her out on a visceral level. But she always made an effort to be polite to him, if only out of the hope that if he ever snapped and decided to shoot up the school or something he might choose to spare her life out of thanks for her kindness. 

Eventually, Noelle made it home, greeted her mother (who ignored her, as usual), and went up to her room. Booting up her computer, she decided to search the diagnosis she’d overheard- “soul destabilization.” She came up with a bunch of monster sites-  _ How To Cope When A Loved One Has Fallen Down. Getting Up When Your Child Has Fallen Down. When Your Spouse Falls. Outliving Your Parents: A Primer.  _ Which, while Noelle knew she would probably need the grief resources sooner rather than later, she didn’t want to click on them. Not yet, anyway. It seemed like doing so would only invite misfortune. 

The next few things that came up were human sites on their theories of souls. These she did click on and read through a bit. Humans really didn’t know very much about their own souls, and they didn’t understand the strength they possessed. But none of it was anything useful to her. Even if the humans did know more about their own souls, they did seem to know enough that any monster could tell that they were very different. 

Idly Noelle scrolled through a few more pages of results before one particular link caught her eye.  _ Rituals for Healing,  _ it read. 

The web page wasn’t a slick-looking page like most nowadays were. It looked more like a throwback to the mid-1990s- janky missing HTML tags and all. It also contained several spelling errors. But it was the comments on the bottom of the page that really caught her attention. As bootleg as the website looked, there were hundreds of comments extolling the virtues of the contents, all showing different IP addresses. Information technology wasn’t Noelle’s strongest subject, but if she remembered correctly, that meant they were all sent from different computers and locations. One comment claimed that the ritual had cured them of cancer. Someone else claimed it had healed their sickly son. A third person said that by using the spell they had managed to manifest enough to money to prevent the bank from foreclosing on their house. 

And even more interestingly, a few comments seemed to be from monsters. One poster claimed that they had performed this ritual and protected their husband from Falling Down. Another had mentioned several badly broken bones- although now that Noelle thought about it, she wasn’t entirely sure if humans had bones just like skeleton monsters did- she knew they did have blood though. 

That, however, seemed to be the biggest barrier to performing the ritual. The ingredients necessary were a small bowl of salt, a chocolate bar, a knife, a glass of water, and blood. Using the salt, the caster would draw a circle, offer the chocolate, water, and knife, and then draw a sigil with the blood. Doing this would summon the spirit. But the problem was that monsters didn’t have blood. Humans did. And there was only one human that permanently lived in Hometown. 

Noelle was very afraid of the Dreemurr boy. He was creepy, and had a sick sense of humor. He was the kind of kid who thought it was absolutely hilarious to fake a grievous wound  and act like he was dying, only to pull a jumpscare on anyone fool enough to try to help him. He thought it was amusing to purposely jam the plumbing and cause a flood. Rumor at school was that his own mother was terrified of him and had to lock him in his bedroom at night so he wouldn’t kill her. It didn’t help that the only person other than his brother he seemed to really get along with was a girl who was notorious for her ferocious temper and propensity for violence. 

But Susie… Noelle felt her face flush as she thought of the other girl. As frightening as she was, she wasn’t as… unpredictable… as her human friend. The reindeer monster shook her head to clear her thoughts. She didn’t need to be distracted right now. As a monster, Susie wouldn’t be able to help her get blood. For that she needed a human. 

But how exactly was she supposed to get it? It wasn’t like she could just go up to Kris and ask him for some of his blood. He would think she was some kind of a freak! And even if she could leave the town and find another human, she still couldn’t ask for their blood. Many humans were still afraid of monsters and didn’t know much about them. They would be afraid she would try to eat them, or would spread diseases, or something like that! 

No. Blood wasn’t going to be an option. She continued reading the website, hoping to find a potential substitution. Amazingly, the comments did seem to get into the details of exactly that. One person suggested using monster dust as a substitute, but that wasn’t really an option either.  She didn’t really want to disturb anyone’s final resting place. Finally, at the very bottom on the page, Noelle saw a comment suggesting using wine instead. It was red, it pointed out, just like blood. And just like blood, it would stain a porous surface, so it was perfect for drawing the necessary sigil. And most importantly, it was accessible. Noelle knew her father liked enjoying the occasional glass of red wine (even better if it was spiced), and she was pretty sure there were a few bottles in the house. 

Very carefully, so as not to attract her mother’s attention, the reindeer girl crept around the house gathering the necessary ingredients. Some weren’t hard to find- salt was in the kitchen, and it wasn’t hard to get a glass of water from the tap. There wasn’t a chocolate bar in the house, though, and it was getting late. It would have been suspicious if she’d sneaked out of the house to go buy sweets.; fortunately, there was a bag of chocolate chips in the pantry, and Noelle assumed that would be acceptable. 

The wine was the hardest part to get. Because Noelle was underage, if he mother caught her with alcohol, she would have gotten into serious trouble.  Carol Holiday was a lot of things, but particularly understanding of misbehavior was not one of them. Noelle shuddered at a memory of her mother’s wrath. Especially since her father had gotten sick, her mother was on the warpath. 

Eventually, though, Noelle managed to smuggle a small bottle of wine upstairs to her room. Following the instructions from the Internet, the girl drew the salt circle, chanting the strange words in the unknown language that it had told her to. Then she offered the chocolate chips, the knife, and glass of water at the center of the circle, still chanting. Uncorking the wine bottle, she poured a small amount of the liquid on the floor, dragging her hoof through it to trace the symbol on her computer screen. 

A heartbeat passed. Then two. Then three. Nothing happened. 

Feeling rather stupid that she had actually thought that would, Noelle went to break the magic circle and exit it. She would need to clean all this mess up before her mother saw it. 

Then, the power surged. Just for a second. The lights flared a blinding white, and distantly, Noelle could hear the computer power itself off to avoid overloading. A strange, echoey laugh reverberated through the room, chilling Noelle to her core and making her fur stand on end. 

And then it spoke. 

“Greetings. I am Chara.” 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unless you know what you're doing, don't summon anything from the Internet. And even if you do know what you're doing, don't do weird blood rituals (even if you use wine as a substitute). You might end up with way more than you bargained for.


	3. The Demon That Comes When You Call Its Name

At first, Noelle froze, torn between panic and disbelief. She’d known the spell was supposed to summon a spirit, and it did seem to have worked as advertised, but if she was being honest with herself, now that it _had,_ she was having second thoughts about it. Whatever this thing was, it was a little more than she’d actually bargained for. But by the same token, she’d already gone to all the trouble, and the website hadn’t given instructions on how to banish it. She wasn’t quite sure how to behave around a spirit, but she decided there wouldn’t be any harm in being polite.

“H-hello,” she said hesitantly. “My name is Noelle.”

“Greetings,” the spirit repeated, in a voice that sounded slightly feminine, although Noelle couldn’t really tell. “Why have you called me here, Noelle?”

Haltingly, Noelle explained her situation, how her father had fallen ill and how she was afraid he would die. She explained her desperation to find a cure, how she’d stumbled across the instructions to summon the spirit, and how Noelle hoped it would be able to help her save her father. There was a pause, and then the answer came.

“Yes, I can do this. I can bring your father back from the edge, extend his time among the living, so that he will live for many more years. But there will be a cost.”

“A cost?”

“Holding a decaying soul together is not a trivial act. If a soul is meant to fade out, the universe will demand compensation for keeping it intact. Are you prepared to accept the consequences for what you ask? I will assure you, however, that you personally will not be the one to pay the price.”

“What sort of price?” Noelle asked.

“Does it matter, monster?” Chara snapped. “It is the price of power transfer, the price of beating back entropy. Ultimately all will pay it in the end- does it really matter when? It is inevitable. Your father will pay it, even if I buy him time so that he lives for eons. You will pay it. I have already paid it, as did… well, it doesn’t matter, at this point.”

“You sound like you’re going to kill someone!”

Chara laughed, a grating sound that crashed against Noelle’s ears like a tsunami. “It’s what I told you l. The power it requires to hold a soul that is falling apart together does not come from nowhere. Yes, in order to keep your father alive longer, someone else will have to die. It is the way of things.”

*But I don’t want _anyone_ to die!” Noelle protested.

“Then your father will die, and so will you, as payment for bringing me here,” the spirit stated matter-of-factly. “You reached through the spirit world to summon me, that also takes energy that doesn’t just come from nowhere. As I said, there must be a trade.”

“No! Please!” Noelle begged. “I’m sorry!”

The entity sighed. “Do you think I enjoy this?” it asked. “Do you think I wanted things to work this way? I was not the one who set up the laws of this universe. For every action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction. Energy is not created, nor is it destroyed. It changes form.” A pause. Then, “I do pity you. Most people, when they summon me, already know about the laws of equivalent exchange. I regret you had to learn it in this way.”

“Wait,” Noelle said, starting to feel desperate to keep Chara talking. “What will you do if I tell you to do it? To save my father?”

“Heh,” Chara chuckled. “Not such a coward after all, then? Or maybe it’s just to save your own life.” Noelle didn’t immediately answer, so the spirit went on. “If you wish to name someone- for instance, someone you have a grudge against, I can take that soul specifically. If you don’t have a preference, then it could be random. It could be anyone. In fact, it’s likely you wouldn’t even know the person.”

Noelle shuddered. It seemed so wrong. It _was_ so wrong. Someone was going to _die_ because of her! But if she didn’t know who it was, did it really matter. She wouldn’t know the person. And what was to stop the spirit from taking someone who was about to die anyway? Humans and monsters both died every day. Humans were more susceptible to disease than monsters, but monsters could waste away from despair that wouldn’t physically damage a human. Humans and monsters both occasionally committed suicide, and humans sometimes liked to ingest poisonous chemicals that rotted their organs from the inside out. Monsters, however, were more susceptible to despair. Humans couldn't Fall Down, after all, although Noelle knew that sometimes they did something similar. In one television show she liked to watch, one of the human characters became so despondent from the death of his wife that he locked himself in his house, doing nothing but eating and playing video games until the show's main protagonist had gone in to snap him out of it. But from what she had heard, Noelle also didn't think that condition was as fatal for a human as it would be for a monster.

“You’re sure I won’t know the person?” Noelle asked. Although she couldn’t actually see the spirit, the reindeer girl got the distinct impression of a shrug.

“There’s what, seven and a half billion humans worldwide? And what, two billion monsters? So close to ten billion souls. The odds are good you won’t know them at all, and never would have,” Chara replied.

Noel hesitated, again. She knew if she agreed to this, there would be dire consequences for… someone. Likely, eventually herself as well, she wasn’t an idiot. But the idea of having to live without her father’s stabilizing presence in her life was one she couldn’t comprehend. She couldn’t face it. And the spirit made a good point. There _were_ a lot of people in the world. Most likely, the person who died would be unknown to her. Every day there were thousands of deaths from illness, from car crashes, from suicide, from drug overdoses, to from murders, to just normal old age. Why wouldn’t the spirit take a soul from one of those people? It had to be easier to catch a soul that was going to die anyway than forcibly taking one from a healthy and alert being. One thing that humans and monsters did seem to have in common was a sense of self-preservation. Both kinds of being would fight tooth and nail to preserve their own life, unless they were already incapacitated from something else.

Having worked through her reservations, Noelle finally voiced her agreement. “I agree to your terms, Chara.”

A low, sinister laugh filled the reindeer girl’s bedroom. “Then we have a contract. Your father will start to recover tomorrow. It will take about a week for the full effects to take place, but you will have him by your side for many more years to come.” Then, Chara’s voice dropped, as though the spirit was sharing a conspiratorial secret.

“There is one more thing I have to do. Hold on tight. It will be painful, but you will survive.” Before Noelle had a chance to ask what the spirit meant, an unseen force crashed against her body like a freight train. Alarmed, she felt her health drop by two, and out of the corner of her eye, for a split second, she saw a figure that looked alarmingly like a younger, female Kris Dreemurr with blood dripping from her eye sockets and trailing from the side of her mouth, but before she could get a second look, the apparition was gone. Something extremely sharp, like a scalpel, slashed across her muzzle. Her health dropped even more sharply, leaving her vision blurry and body shaking. As she felt everything going dark, the only thing she could think about was how stupid she was for thinking spells off the Internet would ever lead to anything good. 

 

* * *

Noelle awoke with her face pressed against her computer’s keyboard. Remembering what had happened, she checked herself in a panic, only to find that her health was at 100% and there didn’t seem to be any damage to her body. Blearily, she looked at the screen. A video was playing featuring a pretty human woman teaching her viewers how to create a glamorous evening eyeshadow look. Clicking into her browser’s history, all it showed Noelle had done the previous night was check her email, look at the weather forecast, and then go over to YouTube. There was no record of her accessing any page with summoning spells, or even anything close to that.

Had she just fallen asleep watching YouTube? Maybe the whole ordeal had been a stress-induced nightmare. With everything that had been going on in her life lately, it wouldn’t surprise her.

Glancing at the computer’s clock, Noelle’s eyes widened. She was going to have to hurry if she wanted to get to school on time.

Quickly, the reindeer girl changed out of the previous day’s clothes (really, she must have been more tired than she thought- she hadn’t even managed to put on pajamas!) and hurried down the stairs.

She was halfway out the door when she heard her mother call her name. “Noelle. Come in here.”

Inwardly, she groaned. What was it now? Carol Holiday rarely ever bothered to pay attention to her daughter unless it was to berate her for something she’d done. Noelle grit her teeth and stepped into the kitchen, ready for the onslaught only to see the older reindeer monster staring at the phone in her hoof incredulously.

“That was Dr. Sludgemore from the hospital,” she said in wonderment. “Your father is awake and talking to the doctors! They’re not sure what happened, but Dr. Sludgemore says it’s a miracle! I’m heading to the hospital now. You should go too, straight after you get of school for the day.”

“Yes, mom,” Noelle agreed, dumbfounded. Just yesterday it had seemed a sure thing that her father was going to die at any time. Maybe that weird nightmare had been a good sign? Or maybe it hadn’t been a dream at all…?

Deciding not to dwell on it, Noelle headed to school. It was early autumn, overcast, and with an odd chill in the air for the season. At least when she got to school everything else seemed to be normal. Catti and Jockington were laughing at something on Catti’s computer. Berdly seemed to be droning on about something academic to a fire elemental girl in the year below them- Noelle knew better than to interrupt that. And Susie and Kris Dreemurr were standing in the back corner of the classroom discussing something urgently in hushed tones.

Something about the two unsettled Noelle. Neither Susie nor Kris ever exactly looked… _happy_ about anything, but the human boy seemed paler and grimmer than usual, and there was something off about the expression on Susie’s face. It took Noelle a moment to realize what it was, since it wasn’t ever something she associated with the other girl. Susie looked _scared._

The bell rang, and the class shuffled to their seats. Dr. Alphys congratulated Susie and Kris for actually being on time today, then noted that, unusually, Temmie was absent. Shrugging it off, the lizard ordered the students to open their textbooks to the chapter on quadratics.

Five minutes into the lecture, however, an ear-shattering scream split the air.

“ZOMFG!!1!! hALp! T3m n33d hAlp 0uT h33r!”

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this only took a geological epoch to write, but in my defense, I did have fairly major surgery in July that took a while to recover from. I'm not going to make any promises on when I will update, but I hope it won't be six months next time.


	4. Susie's Stories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, this is where shit gets real. PLEASE read the warning tags before continuing.

Chapter Three: Susie’s Stories

 

The scene was nothing short of horrific. It was clear immediately why Temmie had been screaming for help. The little catdog herself was fine, but the monster she was standing next to was not.

Undyne, the police chief, was impaled by what appeared to be one of her own spear bullets. It had been crudely shoved through her left shoulder, down at a diagonal angle through her torso, and coming out somewhere around her right hip. The spear point was buried in the soft ground of the school lawn. Miraculously, she was still alive- a similar wound would have immediately annihilated another monster, except possibly Asgore, and even that wasn’t a sure thing. But it was clear she also wasn’t going to hold out much longer. As the fish woman writhed around in pain trying to dislodge herself, her flesh seemed to be melting off her frame like a dripping candle. Everyone who’d run outside after hearing Temmie’s screams started screaming themselves. Temmie herself had passed out by this point, Jockington was retching violently, and Berdly actually _had_ thrown up. Dr. Alphys ran forward to assess the damage, but quickly backed off, realizing there was nothing she could actually do. 

With one final, ragged gasp, Undyne slumped down on her stake and exploded into dust. Of course that set off another wave of screaming. Jockington, at this point, had also collapsed into unconsciousness, Catti trying her best to wake him up without throwing up on him. 

The situation was rapidly descending into complete anarchy- by now, most of the townsfolk near the school had come out to see what the commotion was, and upon seeing the pile of dust, started freaking out. People were screaming, crying, shouting, being violently ill, and generally panicking. At least one person had run through the dust that was Undyne’s remains in a frenzy. 

“ENOUGH!” a voice boomed, followed by a fireball blast into the concrete. Toriel, looking fiercer than Noelle had ever seen her, strode forward, reminding everyone present of exactly why her kind were called “Boss Monsters.” “All of you, disperse and return to your homes. Do not _leave_ your homes until we can make sure the area is safe. Asgore-” she noticed her ex-husband standing in the crowd. “Come with me, we will search the town, as you and I are the most likely to be able to survive an attack.” 

“Of course, Toriel,” a shaken Asgore agreed. 

“Catty, Bratty-” the goat woman noticed the two mortal enemies standing next to each other. “Take those two to the hospital and get them treated for shock, then head home yourselves, do you understand me? School is canceled for the day, and I will call your bosses to tell them to not open their businesses. Go home, all of you.” 

It was a mark of how serious the situation was that neither Bratty nor Catty complained about having to do something together. Catty came forward and scooped up the unconscious Temmie, and Bratty hefted the limp Jockington over her shoulder, and headed towards the hospital.  After Toriel and Asgore, as well as most of the rest of the crowd, had dispersed, Noelle also headed towards the hospital. Maybe if she could see her father, it would calm her down. 

This… this couldn’t have been what the spirit had meant would happen. Could it? Had officer Undyne’s soul been the tradeoff the spirit had needed? 

It had been a horrible, brutal death. The spirit hadn’t said anything about anyone dying in such a terrible way! And hadn’t it also said that Noelle wouldn’t know the person who died? What was going on? 

Noelle was so lost in thought that she didn’t notice the human boy and monster girl quietly following her at a safe distance. 

* * *

_Twenty Minutes Earlier_

“Hey! Kris, you want some of these?” Susie asked, holding out a plastic clamshell container of pastries as she saw her friend sidle into the classroom. “They’re mini-danishes, they’re pretty go- woah, you look like crap, what’s going on?” she interrupted herself.

It was true, the human boy did not look well. While he was always a gloomy-looking kid with messy hair and prominent undereye bags, his hair was even wilder than usual, and his eyebags were so swollen that it looked like he’d taken a punch or two to the face. There was also an unusual sickly quality to his skin, almost like he had jaundice.

“It happened again, Susie,” the human muttered, eyes darting around as though checking for eavesdroppers. Which, the monster realized, he probably was. “I woke up last night with the crushing pain in my chest, and the next thing I knew I was in the kitchen.”

“Was your soul in the cage again?” Susie asked. This wasn’t the first time Kris had told her something similar. The story usually ended with Kris crawling back to his room and forcing his errant soul back inside his body. But Kris shook his head.

“It was still inside me,” he said.

“Well, that’s good… right?”

“I’m not sure,” Kris replied, sounding alarmed. “I woke up feeling… excited, about something, and when I checked myself, just for a moment, my LV was at 20.”

“What?!” Susie yelped, almost dropping the box of mini-danishes. “But that would mean-!”

“Will you keep your voice down?” Kris interrupted. “Like I said, it was only for a moment, and when I looked again it was back to normal.”

“Maybe it was just a dream?” Susie suggested.

“Then why was I in the kitchen?”

“You said before you think you sleepwalk,” she replied.

“Yeah, and I also said when I do I force my soul out of my body to prevent myself from killing people when I do it,” Kris pointed out. “And every other time I’ve done it my soul was still at LV 1 when I checked it! LV 20?! Can it even go higher than that?! What the fuck did I do last night!?”

“Your mom was okay this morning?” Susie asked. “Your dad?”

“I didn’t see dad this morning, but mom was fine,” Kris answered.

“Well, then the two people who would be most at risk from you if you really did go on a murder spree are fine. If you’d gotten to LV 20 in reality, you almost certainly would have had to kill at least one Boss Monster, right?”

“Not necessarily,” Kris responded, looking more horrified than he did before. “What if I got out of town somehow and went after humans? Everything I know about my kind suggests we’re harder to kill than monsters. If I killed another human, I think it would give me more EXP than even killing a Boss Monster.”

Susie was disturbed by Kris’s logic, but pressed him. “The nearest human town is an hour away, Kris, and that’s if you drive. The last time your mom tried to teach you, you couldn’t even get to the end of your street without crashing in into a trash can. I doubt you could have walked to the human town, gotten to LV 20, then walked back in a single night.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Kris admitted, calming down a little at his friend’s logic. Even during times when he’d had to throw his soul into the cage to prevent himself from doing something drastic and irreversible, he’d never gained super-speed or the ability to teleport. The town seemed fine, his LV was back at 1 where it belonged, and the bile started to recede from the back of his throat. Feeling like his stomach had calmed down enough to actually eat it, he accepted a danish from Susie’s package and munched on it, eyes scanning the classroom.

“Noelle looks worse than you do,” Susie muttered to him as the reindeer girl walked into the classroom. Kris shrugged.

“Her dad’s not doing well,” he pointed out, although for a reason he couldn’t quite pin down, he felt his unease return when he saw the girl.

The bell rang, and human and monster took their seats. Just before Dr. Alphys could take the roll call, however, an earsplitting shriek rent the air.

“ZOMFG! HALp! t3m n33d hALp out h33r!”

The entire class, including Dr. Alphys, rocketed to their feet and rushed out the door to see what was going on- and stepped into a scene straight out of hell. Kris and Susie instinctively grabbed for each other as they watched the chief of police’s brutal death. Susie even gagged as some of the dust from what had once been Undyne drifted their way.

Kris felt equally sick, but probably for a different reason. He hadn’t been outside, so this couldn’t have been his fault, could it? His soul was still firmly lodged in his body, he hadn’t lost control of himself, and he was in a completely different place when it happened, so he couldn’t have done it, right? Just to reassure himself, he checked, and calmed down a bit when he found he was still comfortably at LV 1.

Almost as though he was watching a movie, Kris watched his mother take charge of the situation, and start giving orders to various people. The crowd was dispersing with Bratty and Catty taking Jockington and Temmie in the direction of the hospital respectively (and actually not sniping at each other for once).

“Look at Noelle!” Susie hissed. The reindeer girl was shuffling off in the opposite direction of her home, following after the two older girls in the direction of the hospital. “What is she doing? Your mom said to go home!”

Kris shrugged. Honestly, he didn’t really care what Noelle Holiday was doing, he was just relieved he didn’t seem to have anything to do with the apparent murder he’d just witnessed.

“Actually, now that I think about it, she normally gets to school way before either one of us does,” Susie said. “And she was only in the classroom about a minute before Temmie started screaming.”

It took a few moments for Kris to actually parse what Susie was saying, and jumped, startled, as soon as he understood what she was implying.

“You don’t really think-”

“Look, you might have been raised by Toriel and Asgore, but you’re not actually a monster,” Susie interrupted. “There’s some things you don’t understand about us, and I know for a fact Toriel wouldn’t have told you, or let anyone else tell you. Sometimes we go crazy when we’re faced with a loved one’s death. There’s an old story every monster kid hears around a campfire, about how the Monster-Human War started. A monster boy’s human best friend committed suicide, and in his despair over her death, he took her soul. The unstoppable abomination he turned into as a result of that act rained down death and destruction on monsters and humans alike. They say it took 50 humans working together with almost all the surviving monsters to finally kill him, because nobody alone, or even just one species alone, could get close enough to do any damage. And because after that the humans knew what could happen if a monster and human merged, they decided to make it impossible for it to happen ever again.”

Kris stared at his friend. Of course he knew about the Monster-Human War that happened thousands of years before, but he’d never heard _that_ version of events. He’d always been told that it had started over the humans’ jealousy of the monsters’ ability to use magic.

Susie continued. “Another old story says that by stealing other monsters’ souls, you can resurrect another monster who lost their own soul. But you have to be able to hold the souls together- something normal people can’t do, it takes too much energy. But it wouldn’t be the first time someone tried.” Her voice cracked. “Haven’t you ever wondered why my father’s in prison?”

Shocked, Kris stared at his friend, who laughed bitterly. “After my mother Fell Down, my father became obsessed with reviving her and killed one of the Dog Clan to try to steal her soul. He left six puppies motherless, and didn’t even manage to hold her soul together anyway for more than a few seconds. Obviously it didn’t work and he got caught.”

“Susie, I-” Kris began, but she cut him off once again.

“Don’t. I don’t want your sympathy. It’s why I never told you before. But now you know what can happen to a monster’s mind when we’re in despair. So are you with me or not? If we go now we can catch up with her.”

“I’ll go with you,” Kris replied immediately. What else could he do?

* * *

Noelle was so lost in thought that she didn’t realize she was being followed until she heard running footsteps behind her, seconds before she was knocked to the ground in a violent tackle. She felt her HP drop by two, and alarmed, she looked up into the snarling face of her attacker.

“Alright, Noelle,” Susie growled, her sharp teeth bared in a hostile rictus grin while Kris looked on glowering (and looking more dangerous than Noelle had ever seen him look before, even while faking surviving a grievous injury). “What the _fuck_ did you do?”

 

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it didn't take me six months to write this this time- it helped I didn't have any medical emergencies. I'm a shop manager as my day job, so November and December are always really hectic for me. While I still don't want to make any promises, I'm hoping that I'll have a lot more time to write now that the holidays are over and I shouldn't have to work 12+ hour days six days a week.


	5. Consequences of Your Actions

Noelle’s first instinct was to stare blankly up into Susie’s face. How many times had she fantasized about being pinned down by the other girl? Then her brain rebooted itself and she remembered that in her fantasies it wasn’t happening outside in the dirt, Susie was much less angry, and Kris Dreemurr wasn’t lurking around off to the side.

Her second instinct was to kick, scream, and even shoot at her attacker. Very rarely did she ever feel the need to summon up the sharp, candy-cane shaped projectiles she could fling, but in threatening situations, like most monsters, she could call her magic to help protect herself.

Then, logic once again reasserted itself. Against Susie she was at a disadvantage, as Noelle was pretty sure the other girl was a lot stronger than her, physically and magically. And if she attacked Susie, Kris might feel the need to get involved, which was something Noelle wanted even less. The human boy was unpredictable at the best of times, and humans were a lot more durable than monsters (despite their lack of magical ability). If he got involved in a fight with a monster, Kris could seriously injure or kill them with ease, and if she shot first, Noelle knew Kris would think doing so was justified.

“I asked you a question, bitch!” Susie swore, grinding Noelle into the ground again. The reindeer girl winced as she felt herself lose another HP. “What the fuck did you do?”

Noelle felt her mind short out again for the fourth or fifth time in a handful of minutes. How could Susie possibly know?

“W-what do you mean?” Noelle stammered, not having to fake the real terror she felt.

“Your house is that way!” Susie snarled. “You were almost late to class! You saw what everyone else did! You heard what Toriel said! Tell me what you were doing _now,_ or I’ll bite your face off!” 

“Susie,” Kris said sharply, moving forward. He seemed to notice that Noelle cringed away as he did so, and backed off a little, but still angled himself so that he was only an arm’s length away from his friend. Susie relented on the pressure she was placing on the reindeer girl’s prone form, but she still remained uncomfortably close to her face as she bared her teeth.

“I- I- I- I- really don’t know what you mean,” Noelle stuttered.

“You know exactly what I mean!” Susie yelled. “Why were you late to class on the day someone got killed? Why were you acting all weird? Why did you not go home? What exactly were you up to?” The reptilian monster’s voice dropped an octave. “What are you planning?”

“Susie!” Kris interrupted, voice more urgent this time.

“Nothing!” Noelle replied frantically. Thinking quickly, she came up with a lie, praying that her two assailants wouldn’t ask her for proof. “Jockington dropped his wallet when he passed out, I was taking it to him at the hospital so he wouldn’t panic when he woke up and realized it was missing.”

Susie eyed her suspiciously, and Noelle had a sinking feeling that the other girl was going to ask to see the supposed wallet, but Kris, shockingly, intervened.

“Let her up,” he ordered. “She doesn’t know anything.”

Reluctantly, the other girl obeyed. Noelle, relieved of the burden, scrambled to her feet and snatched up her fallen schoolbag, eyeing her two assailants with fear. Kris shook his head.

“Come on, Susie. We’ll go back to my house.” Turning to Noelle, he added, “don’t let my mom catch you out. She wasn’t messing around when she said she didn’t want anyone on the streets.”

Noelle watched them turn away, then turned tail herself and ran all the way to the hospital. She desperately wanted to turn around to see if she was still being followed, but was too afraid of the answer to actually do it.

She knew Susie had a reputation for her violent temper, but she’d never actually expected to see it in action, much less against her. And why? She couldn’t really think that Noelle had something to do with the murder, could she? She had no reason to suspect anyone, let alone  _her._ She couldn’t possibly have known about the spirit, or the bargain she’d struck with it. So why had Susie attacked her? 

Was she just freaked out after witnessing what looked like (okay, probably  _was_ ) a murder? Noelle supposed that her heading towards the hospital might have looked suspicious, but was that a reason to confront her without any more evidence? 

When she reached the hospital, she ignored all protocol and headed towards her father’s room, not bothering to sign in or greet the receptionist. Given what she’d heard from her mother that morning, she expected to see her father awake, alert, and ready to check out, but he was still attached to the machines, and unconscious. As soon as she entered the room, Dr. Sludgeton wobbled his way towards her.

“He’s resting,” he told Noelle brusquely. “There was a marked improvement in his condition earlier, but he is still quite unwell. I’m going to have to ask you to leave. It’s nothing personal,” the slime monster said quickly. “I kicked your mom out too when he fell asleep again. Besides,” he added. “I got a call from Toriel. You shouldn’t even be here in the first place. Make sure you go right home.”

“I will,” Noelle promised. She was somewhat chagrined that she couldn’t speak to her father, and there appeared to be no change in his condition from the previous day. But the doctor _had_ said that he was doing better, and he had no real reason to lie, so she decided to do what he said. 

Suddenly weary, Noelle turned to leave. Really, all she wanted to do was go home and sleep.

 

* * *

“Are you insane?!” Kris snapped as he and Susie walked back towards his house. “Did you really think tackling her was going do anything?”

“A direct approach is best!” Susie snapped back. “You agreed with me when we were fighting in the Dark World!”

“That was different,” Kris insisted. “The Spade King was oppressing the Darkeners and abusing his own son. We don’t even have any proof Noelle did anything. And- AND-” he added, raising his voice to cover Susie’s objections,” we won’t get any if she thinks we’re going to attack her again!” They’d arrived at Toriel’s house, and the human boy was silent for a moment as he fumbled with his keys to unlock the door. Once they were in the house, with the door safely closed and locked behind them, he continued. “I understand you’re upset- I get it. I definitely get it,” he said, shuddering. “But if Noelle really did kill Undyne, we won’t find out for sure that she did it if she’s suspicious of us. We’re not actually cops,” he added. “We’re not cops. We can’t just demand to search her house.” 

“We’re probably the next best thing though, now that Undyne’s dead,” Susie insisted. “We were able to figure out what the Spade King was planning!”

“It also wasn’t like he was really trying to hide it,” Kris shrugged. “Anyway, we won’t be able to figure out anything else today. You want to play some video games or something?”

Two hours later, Toriel returned home, and much to Kris’s surprise, she was accompanied by Asgore. Shushing Susie so that they could hear the conversation, the two teenagers sneaked into the hallway behind the kitchen to see what they could overhear.

“I just don’t understand it, Tori,” Asgore said. “Why would something like this happen? What would drive someone to do this? We don’t even have much crime here, at least not since the Dog Clan murder case.” Next to him, Kris could feel Susie cringe.

It was a mark of how serious the situation was that Toriel didn’t object to her ex-husband using her nickname. “That was not much of a case, considering we found Bernard crying covered in dust outside of the Dog Clan compound.”

“Mmm,” Asgore murmured in agreement.

“You do not think...” Toriel began hesitantly. “You do not think that his daughter has gone down the same road he did?”

“No teenage girl could have done that,” Asgore said firmly. “From what I saw, I doubt even a _human_ teenager could have done that, and it would have been even difficult for a human adult in their prime. It was one of Undyne’s own bullets, Toriel, or a very good copy of one.”

“I suppose it would not make sense,” Toriel mused, “as Susie has not lost anyone close to her in recent memory. Do you know if Undyne had arrested anyone recently?”

“There’s not much crime here,” Asgore reiterated.

Kris and Susie could almost _hear_ the eyeroll in Toriel’s voice. “The town _was_ paying her for a reason, was it not? Why else would we need to employ a chief of police?”

“Well, let’s see,” Asgore thought aloud. “The Drake boys were caught trying to break into the Pezza shop about three weeks ago. Snowdrake’s father was telling me bail cost most of his paycheck for the month. Uh… before that, probably the Catmeyer/Gatorman family brawl in church. When was that, last month?”

“Snowdrake and Chilldrake both need to focus more on their studies, but I do not think either one of them would be likely to commit a murder,” Toriel said.

“And while I can see Catty Catmeyer or Bratty Gatorman, or their fathers, trying to eliminate the other, I doubt they would bother trying to kill anyone else,” Asgore agreed.

“Are there any other incidents you can think of?” Toriel asked.

“I don’t remember any other arrests within the past year,” Asgore replied. “And if it was a grudge over that, I would have think the person would have attacked before now.”

“Yes, I agree,” Toriel said. “But can you think of any other incidents that might not have resulted in an arrest?”

There was a pause, but then, “oh! Right before he got sick, Rudy told me his wife and daughter had gotten into an argument that turned physical and so dangerous that he’d had to call Undyne to help separate them. Noelle apparently shot at her mother.”

“ _Noelle_ did?” Toriel said, clearly floored. Behind him, Kris could feel Susie stiffen again.

“From what Rudy said, it was likely in self-defense,” Asgore replied gravely.

“Now that I almost could believe,” Toriel said, her voice almost dripping with contempt. “Even when we were girls Carol was always a piece of work.” She snorted. “Exactly how she managed to convince enough people in this town to vote for her I will never understand.”

“She _was_ running against Scott Gatorman,” Asgore said. “That alone gave her the votes of the entire Catmeyer family.”

“Still.”

“You really never did like her.”

“I cannot imagine why I would dislike an overdramatic, violent, two-timing _slattern_ like Carol Holiday,” Toriel replied sarcastically.

Kris would have stayed to listen more to his parents’ conversation (he’d never actually heard his mother speak about anyone like that before), but Susie yanked him by his arm back into his room and closed the door as quietly as possible.

“Did you hear that?!” Susie demanded. “Undyne was called to Susie’s house because she was fighting with her mom! Now we have a motive!”

“We do?” Kris asked.

“Noelle is such a goody-two-shoes that she was probably embarrassed that someone saw her fighting with her mom!” Susie said excitedly. “So she killed the person who saw to protect her secret!”

“That sounds more likely to have been Mrs. Holiday’s reason for killing someone,” Kris argued. “At least that’s what my mom seems to think. And it would probably hurt her reelection chances if that got out.” Susie seemed to deflate a little, but perked back up.

“Maybe Undyne wasn’t the intended target, then!” She exclaimed. “Maybe Noelle was _really_ aiming for her mom!”

“Then why wasn’t Mrs. Holiday outside the school with everyone else?”

“I don’t know, Kris!” Susie snapped. “But do you have any better theories?”

“...no...”

“I told you!” Susie exclaimed. Kris just rolled his eyes.

“Come on, let’s go let my parents know we’re here. Act surprised to see my dad. I’ll ask mom if you can stay here tonight, she’ll probably say yes since they didn’t find the killer yet.”

 

* * *

 

When she got home, Noelle was relieved to find that her mother had locked herself in her study, so she didn’t have to talk to her about either her father or the horrific events of that morning. Once she’d safely gotten herself into her room, she briefly tried to distract herself with a book, but felt her eyelids growing heavy. Remembering that she hadn’t gotten much sleep, she decided to just take a nap.

Making sure to set the alarm on her phone to make sure she didn’t sleep through the usual dinner hour- the last thing she wanted was for her mother to come looking for her- she lay down and drifted off into sleep.

Noelle dreamed she was in a jail cell with another unidentified person. They seemed to be relatively small, and they sat with their back facing her. The other person was muttering over and over, “It wasn’t enough, I’ll need more. It wasn’t enough, I’ll need more. I can’t hold him together, but I won’t- I won’t- I won’t-”

Only when Undyne- horribly melting, just like she had that morning, came by to drop off their meals, did Noelle’s cellmate turn around, so that she could see their face. And when they did, Noelle recoiled in horror.

It was the human she’d seen briefly the previous night that looked sort of like Kris Dreemurr, but this time she could see the definite difference. This human was at least five years younger, but Noelle could tell that she was definitely female- the beginning signs of puberty made that apparent. The girl’s eye sockets were dark, but not in the way a skeleton monster’s would have been. Noelle was pretty sure she actually had eyeballs, but the sclera were completely black, and she was bleeding from them rather heavily. She also had blood trailing from the corner of her mouth. Upon noticing Noelle, she laughed the same horrible echoey laugh from the previous night.

“Surprised to see me? You shouldn’t be. Regrettably, the soul I took didn’t have enough energy. You monsters are so weak. I’ll have to take another!”

Noelle woke up, her screams mixing with her phone’s alarm.

 

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Argh, so much dialog. This was an absolute bear to edit, and it really didn't help I wrote most of what was supposed to be the final draft after getting lit at my coworker's birthday party. White Claw is terrible but after the first three you stop caring that it tastes bad. 
> 
> Chara as a [Black Eyed Child](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-eyed_children) both makes sense and is extremely disturbing. As far as urban legends go, I don't find them particularly believable, but hella scary anyway. 
> 
> Also, I can't make any promises for when they'll be done, but keep an eye out for some one-shot side stories, including the backstory of the Catmeyer/Gatorman family feud, the story of Noelle's family life, and _maybe_ a story about Susie's dad (although the outline for that one is still very sketchy).


End file.
